Pavel Zacha, the Bruins' top center in terms of average ice time this season, will miss Wednesday night's game in New Jersey due to an upper-body injury suffered in the first period of Saturday's win over Arizona.
That means the Bruins' top line, the one with David Pastrnak on the right wing, needs a new center. The safest guesses would have been Charlie Coyle or Matt Poitras. Those guys have been Boston's second- and third-line centers, respectively, so either could have made sense. The 19-year-old Poitras getting another look with Pastrnak (the two have been together for a few games here and there) might have been the most exciting option for fans.
Instead, it will be Morgan Geekie centering the Bruins' first line between Pastrnak and Jake DeBrusk, at least to start the game. As recently as the start of Saturday's game, Geekie was lining up as the fourth-line right wing.
So, that's quite the jump. There's a method to coach Jim Montgomery's madness, though, and this move is not coming completely out of the blue.
The main motivation to try this: Geekie and Pastrnak were really good together on Saturday. After juggling his lines a little bit following Zacha's exit, Montgomery eventually settled on Geekie and Pastrnak taking most of their shifts together in the second half of the game, with either DeBrusk or Brad Marchand on their left.
In the 7:42 that Geekie and Pastrnak were together at 5-on-5, the Bruins out-attempted the Coyotes 11-3 and had a 7-2 advantage in scoring chances. Along with DeBrusk, they combined for the Bruins' fifth goal of the game, which sealed the win late in the third period. Geekie did the hardest work, tracking down a loose puck and out-muscling two Coyotes before throwing the puck to the net and creating a rebound that Pastrnak finished off.
Saturday was the longest look Geekie had gotten with Pastrnak, but their success was also a continuation of what they had shown in smaller spurts throughout the season. They've now spent 19:55 together total, and the Bruins have out-attempted opponents 29-14 and outscored them 2-0 during that time.
All of that caught Montgomery's attention, and the kind of battle-winning Geekie showed Saturday is what he hopes to see more of on Wednesday. Montgomery noted that there's no guarantee the duo will work as well for a whole game Wednesday as it did for half a game Saturday, but there was enough there to make it worth taking another look.
"He's a big horse that can occupy the middle of the ice, drive the net," Montgomery said of the 6-foot-3 Geekie. "He wins battles, not only 1-on-1 battles, but he wins battles against two people because of his strength and his tenacity on pucks.
"Now, it worked in-game. It's much easier for guys to do it in-game than when they have two days to prepare, and all of a sudden you're starting and you have to start on time like you played in that previous game. It's a challenge for everyone. It's a wonderful opportunity that everybody has kind of been given, but you have to seize the opportunity, and that's what we're looking for. We're looking for people to seize the opportunities that are presented."
Geekie is going to try to do just that.
"It's awesome. Any time you get to play with players of their caliber, it's something special," Geekie said. "I'm just trying to go out there and kind of give [Pastrnak] the puck in the right spots. We all know what he can do with it. So yeah, just try to get open, make space for him, and create some plays."
When the Bruins signed Geekie over the summer, the hope was that he could tap into more offense playing a bigger role than he had in Seattle, where he was a fourth-liner. With seven points in 20 games, that hasn't really come to fruition yet.
Poitras won the third-line center job out of camp, which is where Geekie was initially penciled in. That shifted him to third-line right wing. Geekie then suffered an injury that opened the door for Danton Heinen to pass him on the winger depth chart. So when Geekie came back, he was once again a fourth-liner.
Until now. On Wednesday, Geekie will get his best chance yet to show he can hang in a more offensive role. No one is expecting him to be a first-line center for the long haul, but finding out if he can do it in a pinch seems like a worthwhile venture for the Bruins.
